


agitated states of amazement

by eggosandxmen



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Art Is Trans, Donnie Is Trans, Gen, Helena and Her Kids, His Mom and His Uncle Love Him, Their Mom and Their Uncle Also Love Them, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 22:06:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19238026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggosandxmen/pseuds/eggosandxmen
Summary: Helena raises Grace and Art happily, but her daughter has something eating at her.





	agitated states of amazement

**Author's Note:**

> This is an Orphan Black AU where Donnie (Helena’s son) is trans masculine. This is because I love him and I am trans masculine. Helena is the best mom in the world and she’s got the cavalry (Tony) to help.

Grace and Art grow up happy; Alison and Donnie carrying them around when they’re small, Helena working, coming home every night exhausted to hold onto them.

The week after the twins turn seven, Helena enters high school. A month and a half after that, the entire Clone Club pitch in to get the three of them a small apartment a few blocks from Bailey Downs. 

And they’re happy. 

Helena goes to school during the day and works nights; the twins grow with a rotating cast of babysitters and a mother to watch them go off to school every morning and hug them every evening. She kisses them goodnight and she tells them stories and she raises them on two languages and she dances with them to records and she tries so very hard to be a good mother. She goes into therapy at Cosima’s insistence and she heals and heals and heals.

Art blooms in school- a natural talent for writing and home-grown science lessons from Cosima keeps him happily on track for honors courses. Grace, bless her, has a dreamer’s head; prime band student, average grades. Helena couldn’t be prouder. 

But Grace-

Grace has something eating her. Helena can tell.

She stops being so excited during dinner, letting Art do the most talking. She starts only wearing hoodies, stops smiling so much, and Helena worries. Of course she worries. So she does what she does best- sits Grace down with blankets and snacks and asks her what’s wrong.

Grace starts sobbing the second the words leave Helena’s mouth. And then Helena’s got a teenager wrapped around her chest, clutching at her tank top, bawling.

She strokes her hair and mutters some soft nothings at her until Grace can breathe again, and then she waits for her daughter to speak.

“I- I-“ Stutter-breath, soft sigh, “I-I-I think I’m a boy.”

“Oh,” Helena says, and then: “ _Oh._ ”

Grace- Grace? Maybe not, she’ll have to check for a new name- starts wailing again and Helena grabs her child back into a hug. “I am so proud of you,” she says, rocking the both of them back and forth, and, remembering talks with her therapist, speaks up again. “Is there anything I can help with?” 

More sobbing, and then; “I- I’m worried I might not be a boy forever.”

“Do you feel like one right now?” Helena asks.

A small, shaky nod, and Helena beams at her. “I’m so proud of you, I love you so much, and you’re my son for as long as you are, yes?”

Her son smiles at her, and then his face drops again. “And I- I- I don’t want Aunt Gracie to be mad at me.”

(Oh.)

Helena gives her child a watery smile. “She is not. I promise. She is looking down and being incredibly proud of her godson. And we can find a new way to make sure she knows that, when you have a new name.”

This gets a smile. 

Helena sits up from the hug and keeps her arm around him, pondering for a second. “Would you like my help with a new name?”

He gives a shy little glance at her, looks down at his hands. “I. Um. Art and I- we wanted to keep my name someone that I love and that helped you, and, um-“ A pause for breath, a clenching of fists- “Donnie? My name is Donnie. Is that okay?”

“Your uncle is going to cry like a little baby when he hears that,” Helena mutters, and Donnie (Donnie! Her son!) laughs. “Have you decided on a middle name yet?”

“No. I. I wanted to keep honoring Auntie Gracie but I wasn’t sure how.”

Helena thinks for a second, murmurs a name to her son. And he latches to it in a second, hugging her close again, crying for the thirteenth time that night.

-

A few minutes later, Art popped in to say that they were very firmly Not a Dude (exact words, even), and that they loved their name but wanted to switch their pronouns around. Helena readily agreed.

-

Donnie Mark Manning got his name fixed in the registry at school by three of his aunts, and Art was carefully stitched a pronoun sweater by Alison. Donnie (the elder) sobbed for a solid twenty minutes when his nephew notified him of the change. The gaggle of Clone Club cousins- Kira, Maya, Charlotte, Oscar, and Gemma- all had known for months and were very ready to commit manslaughter to protect their baby cousins’ honor- fortunately it never quite came to that.

Helena, for her part, made sure that both her children kept her notified on how they were feeling and what would help them. Both ended up on blockers, Art still focusing on figuring themself out before going any further; and when Donnie turned fifteen, Helena surprises him with his first T-Shot, which he had not stopped thinking about for months.

She also surprises him by going deep into the network Siobhan had left for them, and coming up with a slightly ruffled uncle appearing at their doorstep on the twin’s birthday.

“Hi,” he says, absolutely beaming, “I’m your Uncle Tony.”

**Author's Note:**

> I love Orphan Black so much and I’m hopefully going to write more about them; I have a highly predictable Weapon X AU in the works, along with a bunch of stuff about Kira, Gemma, Oscar, Charlotte, Maya, and the Smaller Twins!


End file.
